Exploring of Possibilities of Passion, January 31, 2003

Recorded at the University of California, Berkeley.

This is the first performance of the 2003 series at the University of California Berkeley. Actually this was the only “legal” performance of the series, sponsored by the Art Department. This was after I was a guest lecturer at an art class [it turned out that both the Art and Theater Departments taught about my work]. But after this performance, the local paper did a major cover story about me with a lot of nude photos [including the cover photo by Annie Sprinkle of nude Linda and clothed me (see eroplay.com/ebx/index.html )]. And the Art Department got cold feet and withdrew their sponsorship dramatically. In fact we had to “trespass” in order to do the second performance! Then I found a radical student who was willing to front for the series. 

Back to this performance… The actress who came to the performance to audition ended up working with me for the next couple of years. In fact, she, Linda and I did a dance ritual so erotic and intimate it totally freaked out my pick up band. During this dance they stopped playing, packed up their instruments and left! 

Anyway, here is what I wrote at the time: 

The large studio room in the art department is ideal for performances. A lot of people came...over 40...a wide range of people. Some were waiting when we arrived to set up. They were hungry!

I had a band of 2 saxophones and 1 drummer playing throughout. Slides on the wall. Marie Kazalia in a see-through scarf read one of her poems every 5 minutes. Teresa wandered around exploring people's bodies...hey, she's a blind lusty broad! Another blind broad, Maia...an extremely dynamic experimental dancer...kept the space physically charged with the unexpected. And Linda dressed (?) in her ribbons dress. This was the background!

After some playing the audience (for an hour!), I settled on an actress (or was she really a plant?) who had come to check me out before auditioning for me. Basically I put her through an audition right there. First I had her mirror the movements of the incredibly graceful "disabled" dancer Neil Marcus (just happened to be in the audience!)...she did great! Then I asked her to do an extremely erotic dance ritual with me...and she eagerly jumped at the chance.

She went deep into gentle erotic intimacy with me...pulling the whole room into the rapture of just being human together. At some point, Linda joined us to rock her. Jack the drummer slowly circled us, ritually hitting a gong, deepening the trance. The ritual ended with a reading of my poem WRAPPING AND ROCKING. 

More: http://eroplay.com/Cave/UCB2003_FebApr/index.html